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Russ Clark

Meet Mr. Clark, a Living Donor

He garnered applause and a few happy tears at our annual meeting in 2018, and we reached out to him and member Carrie Elzie about their unique relationship.​Russ Clark spent his working career in the Navy followed by K-12 education. Now he prefers to spend his time volunteering with the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) as a “living donor,” that is as a living case for medical students to interact with. He meets with first-year medical students on a weekly basis and speaks to them about his medical history, his surgeries, and his experience in the health care system. Upon his death, his body will be donated to the very school he is currently helping.

Member Carrie Elzie, Ph.D., Associate Professor at EVMS first introduced AAA to Mr. Clark during her talk at our annual meeting at Experimental Biology in 2018. She recounts for us how she first started working with Mr. Clark.

“He just showed up on our doorstep, literally! Mr. Clark was interested in becoming a whole body donor and in the process of gathering information from our laboratory director he asked if he could become involved now, as well. In speaking with Mr. Clark further we realized he had a whole life of medical experiences that could be real-life cases for the students to learn from. (We were currently using virtual patients). So, Mr. Clark began writing his own illness stories of his personal experiences with disease and medical care. He volunteered to give us all of his medical charts and I began interweaving his stories with the basic science and medicine of his cases.”

As a former educator himself, Mr. Clark saw the possibilities of working with students. “This experience became much more than I had envisioned at the beginning. The cases I shared represented a fresh approach to medical cases under real situations with the students. It was more realistic for them.”

Dr. Elzie echoes these sentiments, “He provides the students with a rare opportunity to delve into a patient’s experiences, emotions and outcomes of care while learning about the science behind medicine. Mr. Clark has become more than his cases. He is a staple in the education of first-year medical students attending all anatomy labs and serving as a standardized patient for ultrasound.”

Other medical schools could incorporate living donors into their curriculums as well. “I would encourage all donation programs to include a consent box asking if individuals would like to be involved in medical education while alive, as well,” suggests Dr. Elzie. “With the success and publicity of Mr. Clark, we have found others who are equally interested in contributing their stories to aid in the education of future physicians.”